Fredericton
The city of stately elms has its roots in the
Acadian village of Sainte-Anne, which was settled in 1731; the settlement was
later renamed Sainte Anne's Point by New England Planters. A new name was
enacted by order-in- council on February 22, 1785: "a town at Saint Anne's
Point on the River St. John, to be called Fredericktown after His Royal
Highness Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and second son of King George
Ill." The 'k' and 'w' were eventually dropped.
In 1848
the town became a city after the Anglican bishop John Medley chose the
community as the site for the Gothic Revival Christ Church
Cathedral.
Bathurst
FIRST known as Nepisiguit and later St.
Peters, Bathurst was renamed in 1826 by LieutenantGovernor Howard Douglas (1776
to 1861) for the colonial secretary, Henry, third Earl of Bathurst (1762 to
1834).
Bathurst was incorporated as a town in 1912 and as
a city in 1966.
The area was the site of a post
established in 1652 by one of the very first Acadian authors, Nicolas Denys
(1598 to 1688). He retired here after the post of the Fort of Saint Pierre on
Cape Breton burned down during the winter of 1668. It was here that Denys wrote
his lasting contribution: Description, géographique et historique des
costes de lAmérique septentrionale.
His
writing describes 17th-century life on the Acadian Peninsula: "My house is
flanked by four little bastions with a palisade with six pieces of cannon in
batteries. The lands are not of the best: there are rocks in some places. I
have a large garden in which the land is good for vegetables, which come on in
a marvellous way. I have sown the seeds of Pears and Apples, which have come up
and are well established, although this is the coldest place that I have lived,
and the one where there is the most snow."
Manawagonish
You'd think Manawagonish just rolled off the tongue - like, say Smith or Jones
- considering how many things in West Saint John carry its name: Manawagonish
Cove, Manawagonish Creek, Manawagonish Island, Manawagonish Road and plain old
Manawagonish, a former settlement in West Saint John.
According to Geographical Names of New Brunswick, Manawagonish Cove is derived
from Maliseet Manawagonessek meaning "place for clams." It also says
Manawagonish Island is possibly derived from Maliseet for "island at the salt
marsh." The island is a bird sancutary, located just off the Irving Nature Park
in West Saint John.
- Manawagonish Road, according to
Harold Wright, was named when the area was a community named Conway, sometime
in the early l9th century.
Kingsclear
As the name suggests, it was an area where the king's surveyor allowed
clearcutting - hence, kings's clear.
Clearcutting was
not allowed everywhere at the time. In 1722, the British Parliament passed an
act prohibiting the cutting of white pine trees in the king's woods in North
America. Land grants in New Brunswick included the stipulation of "Saving-and
reserving nevertheless to us, our heirs and successors, all pine
trees."
When the surveyor of woods did grant a licence to
cut trees, the land would be inspected and any trees fit for use as masts
(those at least 30 centimetres in diameter) would be marked with broad arrows
and reserved for use by the Royal Navy. Then the licencee could take away
timber that was "unfit for His Majesty's service."
(Broad
Arrow Brook, which flows into the Keswick River, is named for this custom of
marking trees.)
Florenceville
Buttermilk Creek, settled in 1832, was a peaceful little farming community
tucked into the hills of the Upper St. John River Valley. By 1855, the Crimean
War had been raging for two years and the name Florence Nightingale was on
everybody's lips.
The Lieutenant-Governor of the time,
L.A. Wilmot, renamed Buttermilk Creek in the famous nurse's honour and
Florenceville, N.B., was born.
The earliest settlers to
come to Florenceville were Loyalists who had originally emigrated from Britain
to New - England in the 1630s and 1640s, turning to the east coast of Canada in
the 1780s as political refugees.
Like so much of early
New Brunswick, farming and lumbering were the mainstays of Florenceville which
had a shingle mill, grist mill and a general store. Shingles were carted to the
St. John by wagon to be loaded onto rafts for transport up and down the river.
Later, river boats were used above Grand Falls and one of those stem wheelers
was called the Florenceville.
The east side of the
community for a long time was called Buckwheat Flat, not the favoured side of
the river on which to live according to the mavens of the time who, of course,
lived on the west side at Buttermilk Creek.
Local
tradition has it that Florenceville's early name of Buttermilk Creek was
derived from the Maliseet m'loxsiseebooksis meaning 'white like milk
brook.' There was, then, a small stream on the west bank of the St. John River
at Florenceville which churned up hitish water resembling buttermilk
Parlee
Beach
Parlee Beach, a noted resort and provincial
park, honours T. Babbitt Parlee (1914-1956), provincial minister of Municipal
Affairs and once MLA for Moncton. He was killed in a plane crash while flying
between Fredericton and Moncton.
Edmundston
0riginally known as Petit-Sault,
Edmundston was renamed in 1850 for Sir Edmund Head, who served as lieutenant-
governor of New Brunswick. It was Head who introduced "responsible government"
the transfer of power from Britain to an elected government - in 1854. This
region is also referred to as the "Republic of Madawaska." They have a flag and
a coat of arms and each year the incumbent mayor of Edmundston is given the
role of president. The region also lays claim to the legendary lumberjack, Paul
Bunyan. Folktales about Bunyan were carried into Maine and as far as Wisconsin.
Pokeshaw
I am enclosing a photo of Pokeshaw Island in
Pokeshaw, N . B. I From left to right is the store, meat house, bait houses,
cook house (with the boss Joe Carr at the left comer) and the cannery. About 20
girls from Blue Cove and Maisonette, including my mother and sister, slept in
the upper parts of the cannery while they worked during fishing season. This
photo taken early 1900. The woman in the door is Miss Gauthier from Neguac,
N.B.
All of the buildings were there in the early 1900s.
Also all the trees on the island. Now there are no trees or houses. There are
birds coming to nest every summer, called cormorants. I would like to know the
origin of the name Pokeshaw. It is situated about 30 kilometres down east of
Bathurst on Route 11 between New Bandon and Grand- Anse.
- Corinne M. Coombs, Pokeshaw
THERE is a community called
Pokeshaw located a few kilometres west of Caraquet. The name originates with
the Pokeshaw River which flows into Baie des Chaleurs. It is a French/English
rendering of the original Mi'kmaq "Pooksaak." Most Mi'kmaq and Maliseet place
names were geographical descriptors and Pooksaak was no exception. The word
meant "narrow at the outlet."
The evolution of the name
may be traced on early maps. Franquelin (1686) lists the river as: "R. bout au
Sac" and DesBarres (1777) as "Pockskey." The surveyor and cartographer Henry
Wolsey Bayfield (1795-1845) may be credited with the contemporary spelling
"Pokeshaw." It dates from his coastal survey of 1845.
-
Contributed by Bill Hamilton,
New Maryland
According to W.F. Ganong
in his book Places, names and Nomenclature, New Maryland was probably named for
settlers of Loyalists from the state of Maryland. It was created a parish in
1850.
According to Geographical Names of New Brunswick by
Alan Rayburn, New Maryland was first named by Mr. Arnold from Maryland who
settled there about 1817. (Photo of The Church of St. Mary the Virgin,
constructed under Bishop John Medley in 1863 is a provincial heritage site.
Noel Chenier photo.)
Tracadie
The name Tracadie originates with the Mik'maq
Tulakadik, which means "camping ground." The area was used as a camp
while native people fished the nearby Big and Little Tracadie Rivers. A number
of variations of the place name appear on early maps: Tregate (Champlain 1603),
Tregatté (Champlain 1613), Tracadi (Jumeau 1685) and Tracady
(Franquelin-DeMeulles 1686). 'Tracadie' is consistent from the 1850s
onwards.
It was resettled in 1784 by Acadians who had
escaped the expulsion of 1755 and by others who returned from exile. In 1849
the town became the site of a lazaretto (hospital for contagious diseases).
source: Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B.
Hamilton.
Woodstock
The name originates with Woodstock, a town
northwest of Oxford, England. William Francis Ganong indicates that the name
"was probably suggested by its nearness to Northhampton, as in England." The
examples of the same name in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont may have been a
further factor. Others have suggested that it may have been inspired by the
title of sir Walter Scott's romantic novel of the English civil War; however,
since this book did not appear until 1826, the theory does not hold. Whatever
the reason, the name was first assigned in 1786, when the parish was founded.
It was then an appropriate designation, as the original place name may be
translated from the medieval English as "a place in the woods." source:
Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B. Hamilton.
Neguac
According to Silas Rand, who published several
books in the late 19th century, the name of Negauc is of uncertain Mi'kmaq
origin and may well be traced to Negwek for "springs out of the
Ground."
The spelling of "Neguac" dates from c1870.
Before that – between 1857 and 1870 – the post office spelling was
"Niguac."
The village was incorporated in
1967.
Lepreau
Point Lepreau was named before Lepreau Harbour,
Lepreau River and Lepreau Falls. While the name is of uncertain origin, it is
almost certainly a corruption of an earlier French designation, la pereau, for
"little rabbit." It appears on early maps as Pte aux Napraux
(Franquelin-DeMeulles 1686); Point La Pro (Southack 1733) and Ponit Lapreau
(Holland 1798). The contemporary spelling has prevailed since the
mid-nineteenth century. source: Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B.
Hamilton.
Kars
Kars overlooks Belleisle Bay
and was named, following the end of the Crimean War (1853-6) for the defense of
Kars, in eastern Turkey, by Sir William Fenwick Williams (1800-1883). General
Williams was a native of Annapolis Royal and served as lieutenant-governor of
Nova Scotia. There is a Karsdale on the Annapolis Basin also named for him.
source: Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B. Hamilton and
Geographical Names of New Brunswick by Alan Rayburn.
Bouctouche
Located in Kent County, the name
Bouctouche may be traced back to the Mi'kmaq descriptive Chebuktoosk,
usually translated as 'big bay', although some make it a diminutive of the
Mi'kmaq for Richibucto; others associate the name with buktw, which is
Mi'kmaq for 'fire'. in 1903, D. Michaud suggests the name originates from a
Native chief.
Although the name is of a much earlier
origin, the area was first settled by Acadians who returned following the
expulsion. Bouctouche is also home of the noted Acadian author Antonine
Maillet.
The plays of Maillet are featured in the summer
at the theme park Le Pays de La Sagouine in Bouctouche.
Of
Maillet's work, writer and critic Janice Kulyk Keefer has written "there is an
overwhelming sense of particular time and local place in her writing, an
impassioned commitment to [Acadia] as a social and political
entity.
The title character of her best-known work is
La Sagouine, with its Rabelaisian humour and satire. It is 'not an
individual but a collective being, the memory of Acadian people," Keefer
writes.
On July 24, 1985, Bouctouche Village had its
status changed to a town and its spelling altered to 'Bouctouche.' Other nearby
features carrying the name, such as Buctouche River, were not affected by the
spelling change.
Sources: Places and Names of Atlantic
Canada (1996) and Geographical Names of New Brunswick (1975)
St.
Andrews
The name St.
Andrews predates the arrival of the Loyalists. According to tradition, a French
missionary landed here on St. Andrews Day, erected a cross, celebrated mass,
and named the location St. André. By 1770 the area was referred to by
Captain William Owen as 'St. Andrew's Point.'
It is one of
the oldest towns in the province, its history beginning with the arrival, in
October 1783, of the Penobscot Loyalists. These refugees, from all over New
England, had first settled at Castine, farther down the
coast.
When it became clear that the St. Croix River
rather than the Penobscot was to define the international boundary, they moved
to St. Andrews. Several brought their own houses, which were taken down in
sections and towed behind ships.
A new town was surveyed
and laid out in square blocks. The streets parallel to the waterfront were
named Water, Queen, Prince of Wales, Montaque, Parr and Carelton – the
last three being names of colonial governors. The cross-streets were named for
King George II and his children.
For the next century St.
Andrews prospered as a principal shipping port with the West Indies, dealing
particularly in timber, fish, sugar and rum. Following the demise of the
'Golden Age of Sail,' in the late 1800s, the town was 'discovered' as a major
tourist attraction and became known as st.
Andrews-By-The-Sea.
Aside from its superb physical
setting, the town is noteworthy for its domestic architecture, which spans all
periods from the colonial era to present. 48% of the structures in the original
town plot have been lived in for more than a century. Two outstanding
architectural gems are Geenock Presbyterian Church (1824) and the Court House,
with its beautifully gilded royal coat of arms over the portico (1840).
The town was incorporated in
1903.
Sources: Places and Names of Atlantic Canada
(1996) by William B. Hamilton.
The information below was taken from the "Reader" found in the Times Globe every Saturday.
